I’ve been thinking recently about Christ lately, and how I feel unable to do as he wants me to. He suffered the most horrible death to allow me the chance to be saved. And I can’t even not sin for ONE DAY during lent. I’m jealous, spiteful towards others, I can’t stop using pornography… The more I think about my sinful behaviour, and our lords perfection the more I hate myself. I know what I’m doing is sinful I just can’t control myself. I feel filthy and deranged. Please, I need some advice
Sigh…
Yeah. It’s hard.
I just lost control tonight too – it was… not a fun experience… Especially afterwards as the guilt is setting in.
Practically speaking, I can’t help very much because I also struggle with the Porn – and haven’t conquered it. However, I have found some tricks that help me to retain some semblance of control. Perhaps these will help you; they’ve worked (partially) for me:
a) Use an accountability software program like Covanent Eyes. Restriction software works, but it is far too easy to bypass when we want to.
b) If the problem is on a smartphone, get someone you trust to set a restriction password so that you cannot access the internet on it. Smartphones make it way too easy to hide what we are doing and are often specifically designed to allow us to hide what we are doing.
c) Get an accountability partner to help you. Every day you are clean, email or text your accountability partner with a short message (just type 1 day; 2 days; 3 days…). When you fall, let them know, pull yourself up, and start over. We know internally that God sees everything, but we also know perfectly well he is unlikely to stop what we are doing and we, as sinners, want our own selfish way, consequences be damned. Having a partner acts as a living reminder of God’s constant presence that can help us keep control.
d) Prayer. I almost forgot this one (which may be my primary problem.) Ask Jesus to intercede on your behalf with God the Father, granting you the strength you do not posses on your own.
I’m afraid I don’t have much advice concerning envy and spite. Perhaps instead of trying to resist envy, you could cultivate its opposing virtue, kindness. When you truly begin to comprehend someone and care about them, it is much harder to think ill of them.
Concerning the feeling of taint – this is probably actually more or less a good thing. As Christians, our own understanding of sin is that we are fully, utterly depraved. Most people don’t realize this, but as C. S. Lewis put it:
No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.
After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.
That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”
For Christians, our realizing of our own failings is not cause for despair. It *is *a cause for realizing that, yes, we can’t do it on our own, but that can God can and God did. The more we comprehend our own brokenness, the better we can comprehend his goodness. So do not think – I am broken, but woe is me, for God is Holy. Rather think – I am the most broken of all, but I am blessed, for God is both Holy and wholly merciful.
“It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.” 1 Timothy 15-16 Written by the Apostle Paul.
